Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9582809" data-attributes="member: 18">Oh I think it's pretty definitely not just "lore gulfs" because of how the role is phrased in the bullet points.The key word is narrative. That's not how you refer to pure lore in the game design business, generally speaking. Narrative is what it sounds like - story. A narrative designer will be involved with lore, but their focus is on the story.Let's look at some specifics:Like, there is no other possible meaning. That's story and thus metaplot. There isn't an alternative meaning or interpretation.Franchise-level storylines are metaplot. Maybe they're more akin to the MCU metaplot, but they are undeniably metaplot.(And honestly stuff like the MCU metaplot was very much prefigured by TTRPG metaplots, which were themselves arguably prefigured by comic book metaplots.)Narrative consistency. Not lore consistency. Not tone. Not "artistic consistency". Narrative consistency. I.e. story. Telling the same stories across multiple products. This is something WotC have long been interested in, long, long before 5E, so it's nothing new or shocking, but they're clearly moving more towards focusing there.Whereas this? This is about lore, and that's why the explicitly say "lore" and "worldbuilding", not "narrative". That's not about story - that's lore, that's absolutely what you're saying with "lore gulfs" (and also tonal gulfs). So what you're describing is part of the job. But it's only part of it.Judging from the job and work description - and anyone who has ever had a corporate job knows those can be deadly accurate or utterly misleading - it looks like it's a real split between maintaining lore and consistency, and developing actual storylines.But this is part of why who they ultimately hire for the role is so interesting. There are "lore masters" who don't do metaplot or narrative development stuff, like Pablo Hidalgo does with Star Wars lore for Disney, for example. Like, people will ask him for stuff that could potentially fill a role, and he can offer suggestions, but he doesn't do the narrative development stuff. And there are others who do narrative development who inevitably interact with and create lore, but who are focused on the story - this would be most videogame lead narrative directors for example.If they hire someone like Pablo Hidalgo, well, whatever the role description says, the role will likely be more focused on lore master stuff, but if they hire someone John Gonzalez (lead writer of Fallout: New Vegas, Horizon: Zero Dawn, etc.), the metaplot skill is likely going to be hiring for. My expectation would be a hire from the videogame industry generally - I'd be surprised if they hired from within TTRPGs. I wouldn't be totally shocked to see a movie/TV writer, but if so I think we're looking at an even harder push towards metaplot.</blockquote>

Verification